Adam The God

May really struggles with frontal pressure. Completely panics. And if the ball is on the ground, forget it. That said, he's always struggled with this.

Perhaps brutal was the wrong word for his game, let's substitute that for disciplined. He clearly plays his role otherwise you'd be calling for his head and he wouldn't be playing.

That was very derpsy of me haha. Apologies.

It means we're more likely to win in inclement conditions, because we don't rely on May and Lever taking intercept marks in quite the same way that we used to. Of course, they are still important parts of our defence, but we're less vulnerable in wet conditions because we've learnt to score in different ways - ie ideally, we're turning the ball over in our forward half or between the arcs.

Who for? Before you say Sparrow, Tom plays a brutal defensive mid role. Can Laurie play that? I don't think so. So who else?

Good old, Kingy. Let's hope he doesn't tip us this week. He has NFI.

We were super aggressive pushing up last night too and in the first quarter our defence looked really exposed a few times. It looked very 2018ish last night at times. Not in a bad way, because our personnel is vastly better than 2018.

Yeah, I heard that on the replay too, but at the game, it looked even to me.

I think our stoppage set up last night was purely for Essendon. They like to chain out of the stoppage with hand balls. By setting up on the defensive side of the stoppage, we constantly nullified their quick exits and chaining. I must admit, I'm not convinced we brought up an extra to the stoppage, I'm pretty sure we played even numbers. (happy to be corrected on that front)

My watch for the rest of the year is on our ground ball game. Another +15 result this week in ground ball gets. Our turnaround in form has coincided with starting to smash teams in this stat. Interestingly, we won most of our games earlier in the year losing this stat consistently, but as a rule, across 2021-2023, ground ball gets were a really good indicator of victory.

If Jefferson's out, I wonder if that means he'll play against Freo? Otherwise why?

We heat Freo in the rain this time last year in Perth, so I think it'd help our bigger mids versus their smaller mids.

I'd love top 4, but I'll take top 8 and winning 1 or 2 finals. Particularly if Trac doesn't get back. It's intriguing that he isn't listed as out for the season, but out indefinitely. But you're right, percentage will have a huge say on both, the top 8 and top 4.

He's very Paul Chapmany, maybe slightly less silky. Definitely suits our bash and crash contested game. He's physical and has smarts.

We lost 2%+ with those late concessions. Pity.

Yep, I rather hope Max is fit.

I'm much more worried about Freo next week, because not only are their rucks better, but their midfield is better. Agree on Fullarton though. The nuffy on SEN comparing Petty to Weideman. Fullarton is a lot more reminiscent of the Weid. People just like to complain though.

Just watched the replay. Outside of a 5 minute period in the third where he failed to bring the ball to ground and Essendon mopped up 2 v 1 a couple fo times, Petty was fine. People just have a bias. JVR was really solid in the ruck and Turner probably played his best game. Super excited about a Disco/JVR tandem for the foreseeable future. I also think ultimately, Petty will go back and hopefully Jefferson can cement a spot forward.

In the centre square, he was ordinary as a ruck, particularly in the first half... as I acknowledged in my first post. I'm watching the replay now and his follow up work around the ground is fine.

His name was Rob. I heard him too. King of the nuffies. Not many supporter groups would call up and whinge about a player after a great win. Probably one of those MCC supporters that yells kick it every seconds. No feel for the game at all. That's not to say I'm not excited about Jefferson and I think he'll play this year.

Post some more please. We could do with less mindless negativity on here.

Who won? 12+ in clearances. Off you pop.

I think if we see it for 4 of the next 6 weeks, we'll play finals. I'm not sure we will, but let's see.

We didn't hold our own in clearances, we spanked them. Otherwise, I agree mate.

Go you redlegs! Goody coached the pants off Brad Scott, who is no slouch himself. Smashed them in clearances - 12+. The ruck role is seriously the most overrated role in the game. Anyway, beautiful around the ground stoppage set ups, massive props to McQualter too. We consistently set everyone up on the back of the contest knowing we could either hit the contest hard from there or stop their chaining out in the opposite direction. Such good coaching. Windsor and McVee are going to be elite players. JT is a genius. Both are so clean at ground ball. And if you can do that in the driving rain, you can always do it. Serious talents. Kolt showed some really good signs. Kozzy so dangerous around stoppage and his forward pressure was sublime. Rivers' early disposal was pretty iffy, but he knows how to win the contest and knows where to go to win the ball. I think with more time in there, his disposal under heat will get better. That's 5 guys 22 or under who are starting to majorly impact games every week. Add JVR to that conversation too, and Bowser and AMW are playing their roles too. The decision to play Petty was vindicated and when Petty struggled in the centre bounces early, Disco hitting the scoreboard meant we could afford JVR in the ruck more. I was more confident about tonight than next week, but we've put ourselves back in with a chance of not only playing finals, but ridiculously, top 4. Let's see how we go.